


A Weird Kind of Horny

by teyla



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, Swearing, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: Rick gets a noseful of that particular Cliff smell, tobacco and sweat and leather, and now he’s feeling horny. Great. He’s sure Cliff’s definitely gonna wanna fuck when he can’t even stand up straight.
Relationships: Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Weird Kind of Horny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilly_the_kid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilly_the_kid/gifts).



> Thank you for your prompt! These two have a great dynamic and I had a lot of fun sussing out how to write them. I hope what I came up with works for you, and is at least somewhat within the realm of what you were hoping for.
> 
> Thank you to [hangingfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire) for the beta!
> 
> Happy Yuletide! <3

“It ain’t that bad, Rick! It ain’t even that fucking bad.”

Cliff says it, and then he loses his fucking balance just standing there, sags sideways into Rick’s side table. Rick doesn’t even know why he has a side table. It’s not like he ever fucking uses it. It just stands there, because Carla put it there. Was it Carla? It may have been Dora. Some chick he was dating when he moved in here, and she said “You know what we’ll put here? A side table!” and boom, side table. It’s been there ever since, outlasting Carla-Dora-Tina by so-and-so many years.

Looks like he’s gonna have to get a new one. Rick’s seen Cliff fall more gracefully than any fucking cat, but that’s not what this is. He’s coming down like Godzilla on Tokyo, and Rick, well, maybe he sorta drops the glass he was holding. He’s trying to catch the son of a bitch, it’s a reflex.

“Jesus, Cliff! Fucking hell!”

He doesn’t catch him. Cliff’s one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle. There’s a lot of things Rick can think of to do with that body, but catching it isn’t one of them. So Cliff’s on the floor now, the side table little more than a pile of splinters underneath him. He’s groaning, clutching his head.

Rick growls. “This is why you let me fucking help you. You wanna add a broken ass to your concussion? If you’re out for half a month, you think they’ll hold production? They’ll make me work with some fucking stunt monkey who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. That what you want?”

“Rick,” Cliff snarls, and it’s a little discomfiting. “Shut the fuck up. Gimme your hand.”

Rick holds out a hand. Cliff grabs it, calloused fingers yanking Rick off-balance as Cliff pulls himself to his feet. Rick stumbles forward, Cliff stumbles back, and then there’s the wall to catch them. Thank fucking God.

“Shit! For fuck’s sake, Cliff, you’re a goddamn menace.”

He’s pressed against Cliff’s chest now, firm, hard muscle under a thin cotton shirt. Gets a noseful of that particular Cliff smell, tobacco and sweat and leather, and now he’s feeling horny. Great. He’s sure Cliff’s definitely gonna wanna fuck when he can’t even stand up straight.

“I’m the menace? Get off me.”

Cliff’s not pushing him away, which is good, since it’d probably end with both of them on the floor again. Rick pulls back, collects himself with all the dignity he can muster.

“Look at all this, broken shit all fucking over.” He waves a hand at the floor. “I don’t even know where we keep the fucking broom in this house, there just gonna be broken glass on my floor for a week?”

“I’ll clean it up.” Cliff’s leaning against the wall, head tipped back. His throat’s all stretched out, nice and long, and his chest is heaving. “Just leave it, I’ll get it later.”

“No, you fucking won’t. Look at you, take a step and you’ll be falling over again. You sure it’s just a concussion?”

When it happened, it was really fucking scary. It was a horse stunt, and those are always bad. Horses don’t have a brain cell in their body, but enough power to kill you with a single kick. Cliff was meant to fall off, make it look vicious and violent, and he did and it did. Except when it was done, Cliff didn’t get back up. Rick immediately felt like vomiting all over his fucking shoes.

There’s a doctor on set, old Doc Mercer, but he’s really more there to hand out rubbers, aspirin, and band-aids. Cliff Booth unconscious on the ground was a little bit too much for him, so they had to go through the whole hospital shebang. Doug wouldn’t let Rick go along, said there was another scene on the schedule that didn’t need stunts. Halfway through the eighth take, Rick did vomit on his shoes, which was when Doug finally decided to call it a day.

At the hospital, Rick found Cliff having a mild-mannered but determined argument with the doc that he wouldn’t be staying overnight. Rick was so fucking happy to see him with his eyes open that he almost tackled him to the ground. Instead, he was somehow roped into promising that he’d babysit Cliff’s concussion for twenty-four hours. The hospital doc had a whole laundry list of things to pay attention to, and by the time Rick had made him repeat it for the third time, Cliff was almost ready to stay at the hospital, after all.

But Rick had promised. He drove them home (Rick did; with all the stress and the vomiting, he was feeling sober enough) and put Cliff to bed (his own bed, since the guest bed still had those funky stains from the last house party). Half an hour later, Cliff decided he had to get up and piss, except apparently pissing took it out of him so badly that he just fucking had to fall over in the hallway afterwards. That’s how they’ve ended up where they are now.

“You a fucking doctor?” Cliff’s cracked one eye open to peer at him. “Yes, it’s a concussion, I’ve had them before. Just need to sleep it off.”

“All right, come on, then. Should be doing that in bed, not in the goddamn hallway.”

He takes Cliff by the elbow. Cliff doesn’t pull away, allows himself to be led towards the bedroom. Luckily, it’s not in the direction of the broken glass. Rick will have to figure out later what to do about it. He could just call in a cleaner.

“Sorry ‘bout your table.” Cliff drops heavily onto the edge of the bed, leans down like he’s trying to pull off his boots. They’re already fucking off, of course, Cliff’s bare feet sticking out from under the hem of his jeans. It seems to trip him up, has him sitting there bent forward with a vacant expression on his face.

“Never mind the fucking table. You want some pajamas?” He really should’ve thought of that earlier. When they got home, Cliff just pulled off his boots and fell into bed in his jeans and t-shirt. Thinking about it, that can’t be comfortable. “Hang on a sec.”

“I don’t need no goddamn pajamas—”

Rick ignores him. He’s got a whole stack, nice silk and soft cotton and one that he’s pretty sure got cashmere worked into it. That one’s so nice that he never dares to wear it, and he leaves it where it is. Pulls out one of the cotton ones, a nice modern purple-and-yellow flannel pattern. Not his style, he’s not sure why he has it. It’ll look nice on Cliff, though.

“Here.” Cliff’s where he left him, looking a little lost and kinda mad about it. Rick tosses the pajamas on the covers next to him. “Get changed. You’ll thank me later.”

“You’re worse than the fucking nurses in the hospital.” Cliff grabs the hem of his t-shirt, though, pulls it off over his head. Reveals his stomach, nice and tight and smooth. Rick’s dick twitches again, and then crawls back into his body in horror when Cliff pulls the t-shirt up further to show a bunch of bruising along his ribs.

“Jesus Christ, Cliff. Did that fucking horse kick you, too?”

“What?” Cliff squints, looks down. “Oh. No. That’s from a few days ago. The fight scene in the bar.”

“You went filming like this?” Rick’s voice does a backflip. With that kind of injury, he can’t imagine doing more than maybe shuffle from the sofa to the bar and back. Cliff just gives him a curl of his lip, though.

“I’m a stuntman, Rick. It’s part of the job.” There’s a pause, then he waves a hand. “Some privacy, maybe?”

“What? Oh.” Right. Rick holds up a hand in apology, turns his back. It’s not like he hasn’t seen what Cliff hides under his jeans—no underwear, that’s for sure, and nothing to be ashamed of, either—but it’s not that kind of situation. Regrettably. “They should pay you more,” he says. “Fucking hazard bonus or something, I’ll talk to Doug about it—”

“I don’t need you to negotiate my wages for me. I get paid what I deserve.” There’s some rustling of fabric, then a harrumph. “I look like a fucking clown in this. Aren’t you afraid I’ll run away and join the circus?”

Rick turns back around. Cliff’s still on the edge of the bed, plucking at the pajamas he’s now wearing. They’re certainly nothing you’d see Cliff Booth in normally, but— “I like ‘em.” They make Cliff look like someone who belongs here. In this room. In this bed, maybe, next to Rick. He clears his throat. “Anyway, you’re not supposed to be doing a fashion show, you’re supposed to be getting rest. Lie the fuck down already.”

“Yes, Nurse Dalton.” Cliff clambers under the sheets. There’s some pulling and yanking as he tries to get them up over his shoulders; then he settles down, blond hair spreading out on the pillow. Rick has to adjust his pants again as some sort of feeling makes his skin prickle. It’s not horniness, that’s putting it too simple. He doesn’t wanna think about what it is instead, though, so he clears his throat, shakes it off.

“I’ll be waking you up every hour, so try to get some sleep in between.”

Cliff grunts into the pillow. Waggles his fingers over his shoulder. “You gonna actually remember?”

“Of course I’ll fucking remember.” It’s what the doctor told him to do. Though Cliff’s got a point, maybe he should set his alarm clock. He heads around the bed to the side he normally sleeps on, fiddles with his alarm till he’s got it set to an hour from now. He puts it on the bedside table, stares at it for a few moments.

He’ll have to stay in the room to hear it. Be pretty fucking stupid to set it and then leave.

“The things I do for your sorry, falling-off-horses ass,” he mumbles, mostly to himself, as he pulls his own shirt off. Cliff’s reply startles him a little.

“I apologize for being an inconvenience. Though I did fall off that horse so you wouldn’t have to.”

His own pajamas he keeps under the pillow, like his mother taught him. He shrugs into them, not needing much privacy because he, unlike some, believes in underwear. “True enough. Sometimes I wonder why you even do the job you do. Someone’s gotta do it, I guess, but it can’t be much fun.”

He slips under the covers, gets comfortable. He wasn’t particularly planning to spend the day in bed, but then, it’s a surprise day off. There’s worse things he could do with it.

Cliff’s pretty close now, nothing between them but some space under the covers. It’s a rare thing, this proximity. They do get close and personal, at times, but it tends to be a matter of couches, armchairs, or trailer sofas, and tends to involve many more clothes than this. Rick’s dick seems to like this; he has to reach down and give it a subtle squeeze for it to calm down.

Cliff’s watching him through hooded eyes. “It’s got its ups and downs, this job. Perks tend to outweigh the disadvantages, so I stick with it.”

“Oh yeah?” Rick shifts, settles down on his side. “What’s the perks?”

“This ‘n that.” Cliff puts a palm against the mattress between them, closes his eyes. “I’m gonna go to fucking sleep, then, if you don’t terribly mind. I heard someone’s gonna be waking me up in an hour.”

“Yeah. Do. Go to sleep.” Rick’s staring at Cliff’s hand, which is right there, close enough to touch. He doesn’t, just puts his own right next to it. “We’ve got more stunt scenes coming up in next week’s schedule. Gotta be back up and running by then.”

And maybe, once Cliff’s feeling better, they could do this again. Lie down in bed, figure out what it is about it that’s making Rick this weird kind of horny, one where he doesn’t wanna fuck so much as he wants to just lie here, with Cliff, and make sure that Cliff’s all right.

It’s surely a thing that’s never happened before. Learn something new every day. He closes his eyes, and smiles as he pictures their hands in his mind’s eye, lying next to each other in perfect, intimate symmetry.


End file.
